


Quarantine

by Beth Harker (chiana606), chiana606



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Fic, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5003290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/Beth%20Harker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/chiana606
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crutchie is one of the few Manhatten Newsies not affected by the whooping cough outbreak sweeping through the lodging house.  He's already had it.  Jack is less lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quarantine

"Heya Jack, help me up, would ya?"

Jack leant against the fence, face sweaty and pale as it appeared by the ladder that led to the roof. 

"Might not be such a good idea." Jack's voice was tired and hoarse, and Crutchie found himself worrying that he'd need to _somehow_ devise a way to catch Jack if he fell. 

"I ain't gonna get your whooping cough," Crutchie said. "I already had it."

"What about my bad mood?"

"Huh?"

"I'm as pissed as a rattlesnake, alright? Maybe I don't wanna inflict that on you."

"I don't mind," said Crutchie, who had seen Jack angry enough times to know what it was like. He'd pace, and maybe swear a bit, and then become suddenly apologetic, as if Crutchie had never heard a bad word before. Nothing sent Jack into a rage so much as feeling helpless,but it was always an aimless sort of rage, and it quenched some of the wildness in him and made him exceptionally manageable afterwards. 

Jack started to sigh, but it turned into a coughing fit that set him gasping after, throat constricting in the way that was characteristic of his illness. Crutchie waited. He waited and waited until Jack had finished and slumped over, wishing every second that that damn ladder wasn't such an obstacle. 

"Crutchie?" Jack asked when it was finished. "You still there?"

"Right here, but I'd rather be up there where you is."

"Alright," Jack said finally, and he reached out for Crutchie, helping to pull him to the top. He was faster than he usually was, and just a little rougher, and once Crutchie found himself on the floor of the rooftop he figured out why, because Jack started coughing again almost immediately. At least from this new vantage point Crutchie could put his hand on Jack's shoulder and try to help him through it.

"Jesus," Jack said, when he could breathe again. "What the hell is this, Crutch? You ever heard of anybody breaking a rib by coughing too hard?"

"Yeah," Crutchie said. "That can happen sometimes. It hurt?"

Jack gave a bitter laugh, which resulted in him clutching his side, which Crutchie took to mean that, yeah, it did hurt. 

"You try and relax, you hear?" Crutchie ordered. He wasn't much good for ordering people around, but he knew the commanding tone that Jack had used with him every time he'd ever fallen sick or needed somebody to look after him, and he tried to imitate that now. He started to rub Jack's back gently. It was strange for Crutchie to see this friend, who was usually the very picture of robust good health, sick like this. Stranger still was the health that continued to radiate from him, in the warmth of his skin, the strength and solidness of his body under Crutchie's hand. At least Crutchie didn't have to worry that Jack wouldn't get through this okay. His own run in with whooping cough had been not that long after his run in with polio, and he'd just about died. His sixth year of life had been a bad one, with polio, whooping cough, measles and chicken pox striking in a ten month period, and being that sick hadn't done him any favors, but on the bright side it meant that he was immune to just about everything, and he got to stay here close to Jack now. 

"Can you believe that Race and some of the others wanna keep this a secret?" Jack complained.

"They told me it was because they don't wanna get quarantined," Crutchie said, which he didn't agree with, though he understood what the loss of money would bring to all of them. 

"Half 'a them is sick. Idiots."

"You want me to be the one to tell Kloppman?" Crutchie offered. He'd heard Jack and the others fighting about it earlier.

"Nah," Jack slumped back against the wall of the building. "I don't mind being the bad guy for the right reason."

"Exactly," Crutchie agreed. "Whooping cough ain't nothin' to the likes of us, especially in the summer, but it kills plenty of folks if they ain't heathy to start with."

"That's what I was thinking. Well, looks like I'm gonna be putting a stop to that. It won't do the boys no harm to rest off this bug anyways."

Crutchie shifted in next to him, and both were silent for a few minutes, until on impulse he decided to take hold of Jack's hand. 

"You know," said Crutchie, when Jack answered the touch with a gentle squeeze of his fingers, "I wouldn't mind being quarantined the rest of my days if I got to spend them with you."

Jack closed his eyes, and let his head fall back against the wall behind him, with a grin that Crutchie couldn't quite read, but which warmed him right down to his toes.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on tumblr. Go here for a full list of my newsies fan fictions:
> 
> http://david-jacobs-would.tumblr.com/post/125939888514/mastlist-of-newsies-fan-fiction-by


End file.
